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Tag Archives: Batman

Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke is one of the best comics ever written. Simply put if you enjoy comics at all you need to read it. If you haven’t quickly abandon this review and find a copy of it. This book h highlights everything good about the medium of comics in the same way that Sin City and The Watchmen do. It is one of the definitive works ever put to page.

In the latest episode of Podcast, Brewer and I reviewed the newly released animated version. As good as that movie captures the comic, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is Alan Moore at his gritty best and the combination of Brian Bolland and John Higgins art is stellar. Telling an origin story for the enigmatic Joker and having him being a cunning and vicious is a bold choice. This is R rated Joker at his absolute best. Moore does an excellent job of blurring the line between the hero and the villain. He forces the reader to wonder how different these two really are and as stated in the narrative, all it takes is one bad day to change your life forever.

This book has been influential on a number of interpretations of Batman, everyone from Christopher Nolan, to Tim Burton and Mark Hamil citing how much they took from this comic. It is fairly obvious the critically acclaimed Arkham video games have taken many cues from it. From its’ examination of a well known character to its’ morbid subject matter, this is a fantastic comic. This book is worth all the hype, all the accolades and I imagine that it will perpetually be one of the essential Batman story arcs.

Cody Jemes is the co-host of the Bored Shenanigans podcast available via iTunes and Stitcher. See more of his articles here. Also enjoy his poetry blog here or download his e-book here. Be sure to follow Bored Shenanigans on Twitter or Facebook.

We bring you a special report of a sort. Cody wants to talk about some of the issues surrounding the idea of the ability to open carry a handgun so Brewer interviews him. That’s all you really need to know.

Failed Potential Movie Sequels Returns

We return with a vengeance to bring you the beginning of the list. Without further hullabaloo, here is number 15 to number 1 of our Rank This! movie sequel list.

15-Addams Family Values

This sequel fell so flat. Pancake level flat. Anjelica Houston and Raul Julia reprise their roles as Morticia and Gomez, but this film’s unrelenting desire to make Uncle Fester a comedy relief character runs this film aground.

14-Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer

Well this was the chance for redemption after that abortion of a first film. Sweet hell, this was not it. Blundering their way through the introduction of Silver Surfer and making Galactus a big, glowy cloud really made me regret seeing this movie.

13-Tremors Sequels(All of them)

Sweet fuck, just stop. The first film was more fun than any movie about giant worms has any right to be. It was sort of call back to the creature feature genre and had a cast of characters you rooted for. Then they just kept making terrible, ponderous films about tunneling worms of death.

12-Mission Impossible 2

The first Mission Impossible was a complex spy film that made the audience think and wonder what Ethan Hunt’s next move would be. The sequel was directed by John Woo and has explosions, motorcycle races, giant explosions, and doves gracefully flying amid gun battles. Not what I had hoped for by any stretch of the imagination. A dumb action film that should have been a tight spy thriller.

11-2010: The Year We Made Contact

Stanley Kubrick set the bar pretty high. I don’t know that this film ever had a real chance of touching that one. But the director tries so hard to do Kubrickian things and it doesn’t resonate. This is apparent in the ending most of all, which ends simply and leaves the audience craving more, especially after how the first film looked into the mystery of space.

10-Shrek 2

Shrek turns into a human and donkey turns into a horse. He wants to win back Fiona and wacky antics ensue…..Next!

9-Aladdin 2: Return of Jafar

Maybe this is nostalgia leaking in here. I used to really like Aladdin. It was one of my favorite Disney pictures, having more adventure than most of its peers. The sequel was bad. Really bad, rehashing a lackluster villain in a lackluster revenge plot. Oh and Robin Williams doesn’t play the Genie and it is painfully obvious.

8-Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

The first film was so perfect. It set us all up for a franchise of staggering escapades and did so much to make us like Jack Sparrow. Then this happened and it snowballed into a half-ass’d snooze fest that seemed unable to grasp any of the mystique of the predecessor.

7-Batman Returns

Why do people like this movie? Other than a top-notch Catwoman, what is good here? I understand the impact and revolution in the first flick, but this was horrendous. Tim Burton created so much atmosphere and scenery, the cast couldn’t help but chew it. Without Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, people would assume that this tripe is Batman.

6-Caddyshack 2

What is there to say? You take a legendary comedy film’s sequel and insult the audience with it. This film could easily be under a dictionary heading under terrorism.

5-Butterfly Effect 2

I don’t think the writer of this had ever seen the original. It is Butterfly Effect in name only. The first one was so good, this one was poorly made, poorly acted, and I was dumb enough to take the bait and watch it. I want my time back.

4-Matrix Revolutions

Okay, Reloaded had problems. It did, but this is where the string was pulled and the series unraveled completely apart. Constantly trying to mind fuck us for no real reason, this film plodded along and ended with a standard fare Zion standoff and an unearned ‘what if ‘ending. I wish I had taken the blue pill instead.

3-The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Here it is, this is why I did this list. The first Mummy wasn’t Citizen Kane or anything. It had its problems, but it was fun. It was a loving tribute to The Mummy’s Tomb and Curse of the Mummy’s Hand. It was a great return to a much forgotten monster. I really enjoyed it and do so more upon repeated viewings. The Mummy Returns was not good and neither was the Scorpion King. This should have been awesome, taking the series to a new land and culture with the Terracotta Army and Chinese Emperor’s undead. This could have at least been a diet version of Indiana Jones. They screwed this up so bad and made it just another forgettable action flick and wasting so much potential.

2-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

This is the worst of the prequels and I will not be swayed otherwise. Even with boring podraces and Jar Jar, Phantom Menace was still watchable. Darth Maul was cool, the space battles were fun and the plot tried for something. In this film, Christopher Lee is wasted as a mediocre villain and we watch poorly written romantic dialogue. Apparently Boba Fett is a clone and so are all storm troopers. This cannot be the Clone Wars that Ben Kenobi talked about all those years ago on Tattoine.

1-Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day

I wanted to love this movie and quote it as much as I do the first film. In the BS production house and amongst our friends this is one of our films. We were so ready for this movie to come out. It isn’t bad. It just isn’t the first film. It tries so hard to recapture that lightning, but never seems to. Rocco’s cameo was a nice touch and having Willam Defoe return as Lt. Smeker was great, but I still feel a bit empty. I loved the Focus on Il Duce, but something wasn’t quite there. This series still gets an annual play through on St. Patty’s Day, but All Saints Day just isn’t the saint the first one was.

Welcome everyone to Bored Shenanigans… To Go. On this initial episode of the To Go series Cody is joined by Brent, In which he and Brent tell embarrassing tales about themselves, wax philosophical about their friendship, talk about pod casts better than this one and briefly gloss over school emergency policy. Also enjoy Cody’s first try at editing and see if you can handle a BS episode without Brewer. So beyond all that, this episode is also somewhat of a ‘oh shit!’ as the plague has infected the BS studios, delaying our normal release schedule. As we recover, we hope you enjoy this.

I have no clue about what the title means…. Anyhoo, In a world were Muppets are darker and more edgy, were distance is measured in gnomes, one man, Chad, dares to defy Batman to track down Le Loyon, mystifying monster of Switzerland’s forest. When not on the chase he has a lustful encounter with a mysterious woman in the front seat of his car.

This episode is restless in more ways than one. No and the rest first off and Brewer and Cody tell the tail of when Cody did not sleep for over 116 hours. Also, Brewer finally succumbs to his own self imposed power and goes nuts at the beginning. We spend time talking directly to some members of our audience culminating in the fantasy that our listeners reference the B.S. Crew in the sexual fantasies.

Also, sorry that this is later on Monday than it normally is there were things crashing last night. So I had to redo a large part of the work on getting the episode cut together and did not have the heart to do it at 4 am. Plus quit your bitching it is still Monday I haven’t lied to you yet. I don’t count this as the first late release.

One more thing I don’t know if you noticed but there is a new tab titled Show Notes. That is where things like links to articles or videos, that we end up talking about in that episode, will go if they aren’t just general Links of Interest.